While digital rights management was under discussion at Berkeley last weekend, the nearby Stanford Center for Internet and Society held a conference titled "Spectrum Policy: Property or Commons?" Amy Harmon of the NY Times was there:

technologists, economists and lawyers clashed over how the airwaves should be allocated with the advent of technology that may make the traditional notion of "interference" between bands obsolete.

Some economists argue that rather than have the Federal Communications Commission allocate licenses, large chunks of the spectrum should be sold outright, creating a market economy for spectrum that, they argue, would drive down prices and spur innovation.

Others argued that as technology like software-enabled radios make it easier to communicate over the airwaves without interfering, such ownership rights are unnecessary and would only serve to limit the wide-ranging uses of the spectrum by requiring cumbersome transaction costs for whoever wanted to use it.

that pitted Lawrence Lessig, a Stanford law professor, and Yochai Benkler, a New York University law school professor, representing the public-ownership side of the debate against Gerald R. Faulhaber, a business professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and Thomas W. Hazlett, a senior fellow of the Manhattan Institute, taking the side of property.

One judge, Harold Demsetz, professor emeritus at U.C.L.A. business school, who acknowledged that his bias leaned heavily toward the property side, said he had been impressed with the debate, but he asked for more clarification.

More background on the conference here:

Wireless innovations are changing the way we live.

We are evolving from the wired world to a wireless one, where information is exchanged seamlessly through the air we breathe. Wi-Fi, drive-by infofueling, location enabled systems and "mesh-style" networks - the possibilities are limited only by the limits on innovation.

An emerging consensus holds that one of the greatest limits on innovation is the government's method of allocating portions of electromagnetic spectrum. Since its discovery, small chunks of spectrum have been auctioned off to the highest bidder, or given away to commercial interests in exchange for their submission to government regulation. Laws prohibit the resale of spectrum, which means that unused spectrum cannot be transferred to others who want it, and is therefore wasted.

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